Building a new garage -- comments & suggestions?

There are a lot of great ideas posted here.
I just completed a new house down here in Florida and my three car is too small already and am planning on adding a separate garage also behind the house sort of connected to a screened lanai and pool.
If you have hot humid weather like us though, I would recommend air conditioning and a humidastat. Then you can control the air and humidity together. We don't need heat here in the garages.
I also put the central vac from the house into my garage as well as a drain.
I have had good result with an epoxy paint but the black and white tile are way cooler and I think after seeing them in the pictures that is what I will do in the extra garage if i ever get the permits.
Good luck
gary

 

If you can stretch to 25 x 40 with doors on adjacent sides, here's what fits.
(I'm redoing the epoxy in garage # 1 with a granite fleck in it, hence he need to cram everything into garage # 2)

 

Here's my favorite. I want to build a garage like this to go with the house shown.

Mark

 

That's kinda smallish, if you ask me. I'd make one side a 4 car enclosed, and leave the other side open, with room for 2 or 3 cars

 

Actually I'd enclose the three-car side with some nice carriage-house doors and leave the two-car side open. The big corner area would be the shop (climate-controlled of course) and the rest of the collection would be in the underground storage facility.

Mark

 

Of course planning permission and building regulations (not to mention land values and hence space!) is different here in London, England, but one idea I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is to have a car pit in the floor of your garage. I'm having a 2-storey extension built on the side of my house, including a replacement larger garage at the front (8 by 3 metres). I've asked my builder to ensure that this will be built with the possibility of conversion back into non-garage use (to keep flexibility if a future buyer wishes) so will have deep foundations and a proper damp-course, etc. I've also asked him for a six-foot deep car-pit with lighting and power and a few steps down into it. This will be covered when not in use, but allows any car to be driven over it and worked on from underneath - with the garage door closed I'm glad to say. A lot cheaper than a lift. There's a company on the web that sells pre-made GRP pits for retro-fitting to an existing garage floor, but I can't remember their name offhand.

I love the tile flooring posted previously. I hope there's a UK supplier...

I'm also having the units and worktops from our existing kitchen (yes, part of the whole house refurbishment deal is my wife having an awesome new kitchen) put into the garage, as well as "daddy's beer fridge" moving in there. I'm having CAT5 to every room in the house for distributing audio, video, digital TV, etc. so I guess I might as well include the garage

Only MHO, but I'm not much of a fan of those open fronted wooden garages, but to be fair, we don't have the climate for them here in the UK!

Good luck with the garage.

James.